Letter from Al to Dunn
According to his bio,"Al Zolynas was born in Austria of Lithuanian parents in 1945, and grew up in Sydney, Australia and Chicago, Illinois. He holds a PhD. in Creative Writing and Enlish from the University of Utah and was a Fulbright-Hays Fellow in India". Zolynas's letter which comes on a single scroll spans 4 days (July 9, July 11, July 12, and finally July 17). Al catches Dunn and his then-wife Lois, up on various happenings in his life--ranging from Jodie & Howard (which one can assume are married friends of the Dunn's). At one entry (July 12) Zolynas hand writes charmingly apologies for the installments only to continue with two more entries. In the final installment, he makes a remark about a Polish woman dressed in peasant attire at a seafood restaurant in Winona.
Letter from A to Dunn
Dunn receives a small letter from "A" on October 3, 1972. This correspondence is assumed to be from a close friend because Dunn did live in Marshall, Minnesota, but also the tone of the letter is one of an established friendship, based on sentence such as "[...] and do plan on staying over with us". There is no mention of his then-wife attending this dinner however. Noted on the back is a map for Dunn to follow
Letter from Kathleen Norris
Sent to Dunn on May 23, 1971. According to the letters, it can be speculated that Dunn is living in Long Island, New York because Norris comments on coming to visit him and his current wife. Norris delights about being able to obtain a copy of Dunn's latest book (upon further research the book she is most likely speaking of is "5 Impersonations" which is now out of print). Based on the tone of the letters, what can be speculated is Dunn and Norris have met before a few times before this letter
Letter from Jerry to Dunn
On May 6, 1976, Stephen Dunn received a correspondence from Jerry. Based on the frank and open dialogue, especially regarding university politics, it can be assumed the pair must be close or close enough to speak with one another in this manner. Jerry, now a former editor of Three Rivers Press, congratulates Dunn on his work and notes he should be up for the Lamont Prize.
Stephen Dunn
Hofstra Alumni and 2001 Pulitzer Prize Winner. According to the Poetry Foundation: "Poet Stephen Dunn was born in 1939 in New York City. The first of his family to go to college, Dunn attended Hofstra University on a basketball scholarship and later worked in advertising. In an interview with Poets and Writers, Dunn discussed the leap from being an ad-man to poet: “My first job out of college was writing in-house brochures for Nabisco in New York, and I kept getting promoted. I was in danger, literally, of becoming like the men who were around me. So I quit and went to Spain to write a novel, and wrote a bad one. But I was trying to write poetry too, and those efforts seemed more promising. The rest, as they say, is history, or my history.” Dunn attended the New School and earned an MA in creative writing from Syracuse University, where he studied with Philip Booth, Donald Justice, and W. D. Snodgrass. He is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, including the National Poetry Series Prize winning Local Time (1986), Landscape at the End of the Century (1991), Loosestrife (1996), Different Hours (2000), which won the Pulitzer Prize, What Goes On: New and Selected Poems 1995-2009 (2009), and Here and Now (2011). His works of prose include Riffs and Reciprocities: Prose Pairs (1998), and Walking Light: Essays and Memoirs (reissued 2001)"
It has been said about Dunn's work that his "interest in the mundane, the typical, and the minutia of a certain stratum of American life shapes his entire body of work. Acclaimed for his accessible style, Dunn has been described by fellow poet David Wojahn as “one of our most prolific and consistent poets… level-headed, witty, conversational in his diction, and willing to see in domestic life his means of attaining and imparting wisdom.” Though generally content to evoke the happy ambivalences of middle-class America, volumes such as Loosestrife are marked with darker themes, such as divorce and home invasion"
Gifts From Fans